Hail

As the strangers walk past me,
I almost have a sudden urge,
To shout and see if they respond,
To the boy whose feet shuffle on the verge.

True, a slight rain was forming,
The hazy drops feebly fall,
The lazy wind fails to correspond,
As if the water has no weight at all.

But they make no difference, those clinging crumbs
Of moisture. Usually they just drip off the coats.
Sometimes, they get caught in your hair,
Or they paste themselves to your face,
But how you brush them off, with such haste,
The beads now unchaste,
The trail of the skies tears retraced,
This endless tautology of comfort's comforting,
Yet needless embrace.

And I wonder, what would it be like
If I stepped out from under, my stoic and solid
Shelter, and for the first time felt
The trickle filter through. Welter
In the climb, but yet a descent, heroic yet squalid,
If only I could misrepresent this brick box
Where I dwelt.
What is this ascent,
In which all that is warmer can't melt?
Stuck in this stone-stable state.
If I were to fly I would be a liar,
The pattern won't shift as I get older,
But as I reach higher,
I only feel colder.